The 2015 In Review Contest [Reviews: 74]

Make games! Discuss those games here.

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charbile
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Post by charbile »

char's lovely review game

interesting design choices

a) novelty of a review in the form of a game

b) commentary on sam's lovely house

c) non-tile based movement & custom text box

---

b) is probably the weakpoint and make or break it part of the game, as it requires you to have played sam's lovely house -and- have it fresh in memory to understand what is being said. And on top of that, have to be somewhat familiar with the games of last year's review contest and some of what happened in the thread. That's a lot of requirements so it's definitely not for everyone.

a) is neat. slice of life games are pretty rad, honestly. i'd like to see more. the review parts would make no sense if you haven't played the game, going back to b), making it actually quite silly in a lot of ways--to fully grasp all the a for a, b for b comparisons being made in the review, you would have had to have played the game and thus don't really need a review, (thus calling it commentary here). Things like: the random text walking through the woods, the desire to find something to place in the hall on display, etc.

c) is what makes the game very playable and mostly a wish for future games to try. the majority of time spent playing ohr games is 1) walking around, 2) reading text, 3) battles. make one or more of those kind of fun in and of itself? you got my interest along with other players who have even less of a tolerance for what you take for granted in the ohrrpgce.


also i wrote text and made a sprite for table.rpg, but forgot to place it in the woods. really was rushed toward the end. most of the time was spent making that forest map, having to go through layers to put large overlapping trees down. maybe a wizard like tmc or james knows the shortcut but i was borderline broken getting through that. was gruesome. and we really do own a two manual organ complete with ranks of pipes. jsh could visit and confirm this.

and thanks to everyone playing and saying stuff. is all cool, glad it did whatever it did. it sure was a game. but not really? what is a game
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the joy or reviewing ohr games thanks to my good buddy and pal sdhawk
the joy or reviewing ohr games thanks to my good buddy and pal sdhawk
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Gizmog
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Post by Gizmog »

http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtop ... 948#120948

Painted Space is reviewed! After a fashion..
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Post by charbile »

Crusty's Heyday by kylekrack

a) shooting gallery

b) pirate themed

c) script error due to not including correct game.exe

---

Starting with the included exe, I had to go back year after year until I was able to start the game without errors using a game.exe from 2013. This allowed me to play the game until the shooting gallery part where, once a pig pops up and I shot it, it threw a script error.

Let's talk about life and things.

How do you feel about dialect being written in dialogue? I'm fine with some slight southern twang or a pirate's arr here and there. I actually prefer not to use it myself when writing text as it can be clunky, and it's meant as pronunciation, not spelling. If I say the word "I" as "ah", it's still the word "I". If the character is a southern belle, I can imagine the accent myself. I guess what i'm trying to say is, if it's like ar ah bee spillin me huhoot all ova er fluer, it gets really hard to read.

but that's more of a personal thing. it can work in comedy. getting off track here.

i thought the titanic joke was well done. the textbox portrait sold it. don't even have to fact check or look this up--know it's a contest game.

a shooting gallery game is something cool to code. it's like how if you're an aspiring video game programmer, it's often suggested you start by coding basic games like tetris, or something atari. it's a good start. if this were a school project, i'd give it a well-done sticker. if i knew kylekrack better, i'd give him a proper congrats, maybe buy him a sandwich and fries to celebrate a successfully made game. but when we sit down, i'd get deathly serious and tell him what i really thought, between friends where nobody else would know or hear. i'd be that friend, the best kind. we'd talk about life and things. what one chooses to do with it.
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my book review
my book review
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Post by Feenicks »

MrNintendo1's Michael Jackson Dancing by Gizmog

Going to have to come clean here: I was completely fooled by giz's schtick, and downloaded the original MJD thinking it was the same one that giz had uploaded.

Obviously, that wasn't the case. The game pretends to be the same thing as the original, .bam music and all, for all of 5 seconds before slapping spooky eyes on top of the original MJ sprite and transitioning to an exploding OHR House logo (?). You go through the abandoned ruins of Castle Paradox, Zantetsuken, and Slime Salad, blowing up skeletons along the way, and the game ends with the thriller dance pyramid coming onscreen to the classic thriller.bam (...or whatever its actual filename was). I was expecting something to happen at the end of the song, but sadly that wasn't to be the case. It's all very Giz-ish.

It's a joke game, no getting around that. Would it have had a bit more impact if I had actually been around in 2001 for the first MJD, and the controversy around the cancelled second one? Would've been 7 or 8 when it came out, so probably not.
Probably not worth playing, unless you really want some sort of closure to the MJD saga.

1. Paladin Traducer
2. The War on XMas
3. Fridge Racer
4. Devs Like Waffles
5. Charbile's Lovely Home
6. Allu in the Demon's Cave
7. Teekee
8. Martin Van Buren, Monster Slayer
9. Lab Rat
10. Painted Space
11. Phlan
12. MrNintendo1's Michael Jackson Dancing
13. Linear Quest II
Attachments
Prefer the original, sorry giz
Prefer the original, sorry giz
thriller0005.png (4.52 KiB) Viewed 9228 times
I... actually kinda like the tiles here.
I... actually kinda like the tiles here.
thriller0003.png (9.7 KiB) Viewed 9228 times
I was tricked!
I was tricked!
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charbile
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Post by charbile »

Devs Like Waffles by Bob the Hamster/Gizmog

A) waffle themed tetris-like

B) ohr user cameos

C) mobile phone screen ratio

---

B) is cool. same with the graphics and scripts. I love the little touches like the sound fx for when characters speak. The ad version is fun and really delivers the mobile game experience.

A) The readme says "A falling block puzzle game". While that is more accurate, it is interesting to use the word tetrislike like it's become rougelikes with the way everyone's got to make them.

The falling block puzzle element is as follows:
- fill in a row with anything to clear it
- 3 tiles: waffle, syrup, butter
- syrup and butter tiles will be absorbed into waffle tiles if above one
- a waffle tile that has absorbed syrup and butter is worth points when cleared
- dev critters will eat nearby waffle-syrup-butter combined tiles

It works, I like how the critters will eat completed waffle blocks, but it feels like something is missing to really put it over. There's a cognitive dissonance where I feel like I should be playing as the dev critters who were hired by thegiz to make waffles, but I'm not. Instead, I am the hand of god who gently, sometimes harshly, drops from the heavens waffle and waffle accessories onto these poor creatures. Who am I? What am I? Am I the indie developer itself, the bad boy dropping vases to watch them shatter, finishing waffle tiles to watch others devour my dreams.

There comes a realization that, while I dig this game, it's not something I would enjoy playing outside of an ohr contest. Please don't take this the wrong way, because it is extremely well constructed, and this sentiment applies to pretty much every ohr game I play, including my own at times. I've noticed that even with the most careful care and execution, there is always something that feels off in these things. It's much more noticeable in games that do something simple in an already well established genre.

When tetris first came out, i was all on that like chicken on waffles. More recently, i had a chance to play puzzle street fighter and really enjoyed it. So i know the genre can be tons of fun, but there's a certain quality and production threshold that has to be reached for that to happen. Play enough indie contest games, ideas, jams, demos, tutorials, etc; they're usually mighty fine in context, but it's worth trying to understand, as a indie waffle developer, why certain games have the full feel, and others don't.

I'll see if i can explore/explain this better in the next games to review.
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matching game (edit/fix)
matching game (edit/fix)
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Last edited by charbile on Wed Feb 10, 2016 3:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Gizmog
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Post by Gizmog »

http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6838

Martin Van Buren, Monster Slayer is Martin Van Buren, Monster Reviewed!

EDIT:

Lab Rat Too

http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtop ... 964#120964
Last edited by Gizmog on Wed Feb 10, 2016 6:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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charbile
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Post by charbile »

Drydocs - A Merchant RPG (by LCNgaming)

a) buy/sell travel genre

b) conceptual stage of development, early alpha?

c) based on a board game

---

a) is a genre i can get into. grow your fortune, crew, ships, and power through traveling and trading as opposed to endless battles. not sure what the genre's name is, maybe tradewinds or m.u.l.e. or that old star-something pc game.

b)
Here is a game I've been working on for a while. It's not much, but it's a lot more than nothing. It's not really done. I really just wanted to get this out here and see what other people think. Not much polish. Just the minimal viable product.
Minimal viable product. Such language. I think the genre is great, but about this game in particular

1. check out tradewinds2 (sandlot games i think) to understand expectations

2. the buy low/sell high is treated as a mini-game in modern rpgs. have to dress it up to make it feel complete, ideally with a strong narrative, characters, other game elements or twists

3. checking your website, lcngaming.weebly.com - if it's supposed to be a board game, and this is the video game adaptation, why not make it play more like the board game? simple could also be fun, play against others

4. you made a huge map, planned out your cities, explicitly tell the player what items sell for what in which cities (all fixed prices), give them a map showing the locations of everything (thrill of exploration gutted)...

5. the day/night and item display features and gui are neat, you'll likely spend a lot of time redoing it later (not much polish yet, as you've said). i know that map took a long time to make, good chance you'll need to redo it once you introduce missing design elements

6. the base of what's there isn't what makes the genre fun to play. exploring, making decisions of what to do with limited options, buying ships and crew, upgrading them, events happening that are more substantial than 'you find someone, something happens, you go on your way'
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such map wow
such map wow
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Post by kylekrack »

Update on Drydocks:

The dev is in the process of revamping the entire game. This includes a new map, new locations, significantly fewer cities, 6 commodities instead of the original 17, and overall mechanics overhauls. Events will be handled entirely differently and more logically, in a way that will be much more enticing.

From what I've seen of it, the game looks a lot better, aesthetically, dynamically, etc. I was skeptical about the small number of trade goods initially, but from playing a bit, it feels much easier to manage and much easier to balance, offering a more polished game experience.

I talked about this earlier, so I just figured I'd let everyone (Gizmog) know that I was able to get the dev to start working on it again. I look forward to being able to say more about it.
My pronouns are they/them
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Post by Feenicks »

Ghost's Towns by The Wobbler

After a brief text-only intro, you, some long-armed green dude, are woken up by a rabbit, give yourself a name and find a key in a toilet. The meat of the game's in that same sorta surreal vein, and for the most part that's neat.

The game, as its description states, acts as a bit of a last word for a lot of Wobbler's characters. They're a varied, visually interesting bunch, with a nice mix between those who are there to just give a line or two and those who have a bit more meat to their interactions, and your task in the game is to go about the town and do stuff pertaining to them all. After doing these activities - there's one more or less associated with each building - you get a token. These tokens are to be used in the Tower of Truth, and progress is barred until you use the vision-giving machines on each floor.

Even if it's meant to be the thing that ties up the whole game, I really didn't find the scenes in the Tower of Truth all that compelling/interesting. I mean, yeah, it's meant to be a contrast to the rather whimsical nature of the town and its inhabitants, but that contrast also robs it of a lot. There's a lot of blobby, fairly featureless people, it's all in greyscale, and a lot of the scenes felt only tenuously connected to one another, even if the endings give a bit more context to it all. The music, which outside of those scenes feels fairly well-done and well placed, falls a bit flat here as well.

Speaking of which: the three endings are kinda neat, reinterpreting who exactly the main character is, which is neat, What was the deal with that devil, though? Whether it was metaphorical or literal, I can't say it really fit in with the much more down to earth nature of those scenes.
Also: would the horse have said something if I had gone back to it right before the point at which it would have disappeared?


How much would this appeal to people who've never heard of anything that this pulls from? That's really the Big Issue with referential stuff like this. I want to say it stands up well on its own, but being here for a good chunk of time makes it difficult to judge that.

1. Paladin Traducer
2. The War on XMas
3. Fridge Racer
4. Devs Like Waffles
5. Charbile's Lovely Home
6. Ghost's Towns
7. Allu in the Demon's Cave
8. Teekee
9. Martin Van Buren, Monster Slayer
10. Lab Rat
11. Painted Space
12. Phlan
13. MrNintendo1's Michael Jackson Dancing
14. Linear Quest II
Attachments
No need to be so blunt about it.
No need to be so blunt about it.
ghoststowns0015.png (5.87 KiB) Viewed 9136 times
I agree.
I agree.
ghoststowns0011.png (14.77 KiB) Viewed 9136 times
Sort of that sort of game.
Sort of that sort of game.
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charbile
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Post by charbile »

The Element of Power (by kylekrack)

a) rpg setup

b) choose your hero's class

c) fish village

---

a) and b) the setup: you find a book. Where did it come from? Not from the bookshelf. You go visit your neighbor down the dirt path, and he understands the language. There's even a picture of what looks like you and your neighbor in it, with a big bad monster on the other page. ooo foreshadowing.

Given all of that, your neighbor let's you pick a spell book cause you're weak. Just one. Sorcery, healing, or necromancy. Why not take all three? Why does this guy have these spell books? There's lots of questions here.

And it doesn't stop there. You find what looks like the grim reaper, forced to talk to him because of a 'plot bolder' in the form of a farmer whose thing broke down and is blocking the path, and this guy. This guy... this guy doesn't say anything, gives you a map of where to go, and the heroes are like, OK. They never question what's going on.

What world is this?

And then you get to the fish village. put a smile on me ten miles wide. you don't know how much fun this little place gave me. i want to know more. i want them to talk to me. i couldn't figure out how and quit. but damn, sneaking that in there toward the end. simply amazing.

should mention the battles. it's a bit excessive. things like: boss fight setups, go into a cave to touch a crystal thing, fight; repeat three times; fight a big monster; repeat again to fight the really big boss monster--at first i thought the game was broken and the door was looping. could work better, need some explanation. and the airship is cool but why can't you let me fly it? and the secret passage is an especially nice touch. some classic elements of rpg power design in here.

i want to know more. tell me of these fish. i hope one joins the party. it really got me excited. also the music got me pumped and monster design was cute.

classic ohr rpg magic going on here. had fun, but had to skip a lot of the battles to do so.
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the book where did it come from
the book where did it come from
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my god
my god
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Post by kylekrack »

Man, I posted this game as a 'why not.' It's basically the first thing I made in OHR, and any game, for that matter. This is the best possible feedback I could have received. Glad you found it entertaining.
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Gross-ass sprite work here. Tasty.
Gross-ass sprite work here. Tasty.
Screen Shot 2016-02-11 at 1.37.52 AM.png (75.78 KiB) Viewed 9100 times
My pronouns are they/them
Ps. I love my wife
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Post by The Wobbler »

Thanks for the review, Pheonix. I'm glad you noticed a difference in music styles between the main world and the Tower; the songs there are much older, recorded around 2009. Whether it's effective or not is debatable, but I'm glad you picked up on something being "off."

I don't think the character callbacks are a problem for people who don't know what they're referring to, but obviously it's hard for me to judge that. None are essential to understanding what's going on.
Pheonix wrote:
Also: would the horse have said something if I had gone back to it right before the point at which it would have disappeared?
Nay.
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Post by Feenicks »

Time Twisterby slaymarc7

This game features Albert Einstein, to a degree. Today I read that gravitational waves were formally announced to have been detected. Coincidence? Sure, let's say so.

This game - even if the only gamelike portions of it are a pathetic maze or two and a short quiz - is really disjointed. You're a student of some sort, as far as I can gather, and... get locked in an art museum? After going through a few rooms, you get given a key, which as far as I can tell you can't actually go back and use, and then go through a teleporter and visit Albert Einstein, or at the very least a version of him all too eager to tell you his life story. A robot spider that shuts down as soon as you corner it is also involved.

Graphics are typical first game solid blocks of color with some minor use of the spray paint tool; music's the old public domain stuff that comes along with the engine, placed oddly (that one victory music one being used on a map with nothing but a road on it, for example). The joke that Giz found funny was from spongebob. I can see it continuing on interminably, but as-is it just ends at the sign saying level 3's next.

Isn't really enough meat on the proverbial bone here to justify a longer review.

1. Paladin Traducer
2. The War on XMas
3. Fridge Racer
4. Devs Like Waffles
5. Charbile's Lovely Home
6. Ghost's Towns
7. Allu in the Demon's Cave
8. Teekee
9. Martin Van Buren, Monster Slayer
10. Lab Rat
11. Painted Space
12. Phlan
13. MrNintendo1's Michael Jackson Dancing
14. Linear Quest II
15. Time Twister
Attachments
You could have at least had the sign say this was the end of the demo.
You could have at least had the sign say this was the end of the demo.
recovered1 - Copy0008.png (1.63 KiB) Viewed 9074 times
Riveting map design.
Riveting map design.
recovered1 - Copy0004.png (2.11 KiB) Viewed 9074 times
So this is all just a dream? Or is that an attempt at a metaphor?
So this is all just a dream? Or is that an attempt at a metaphor?
recovered1 - Copy0002.png (7.96 KiB) Viewed 9074 times
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Feenicks
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Post by Feenicks »

Return - A Point and Click Adventure by kylekrack

Here, a wizard has turned your daughter into a frog/toad for no reason other than his own amusement, and it's up to you to turn her back. A point and click adventure in the OHR is pretty neat, even if this one is a bit rough around the edges and as far as I can ends abruptly a bit after you get the ability to become a mouse.

As a point and click adventure, you... point and click on things. Near the end of the demo you get the ability to transform into a mouse, which you can do either by pressing a key or by clicking on the icon; the first has a fairly significant amount of lag to it, which is rather annoying.

The artwork is a bit crude/rushed-seeming, but it does fit the overall feel of the game, so props to that. Had to turn off the music after a while, and the save sound effect feels awfully out of place. Writing's nice; again, props to getting that part of the genre down. There just needs to be a good bit more than what's here right now. I saw the map in the graphics folder, so it's good to know some more was planned for this.

Worth mentioning: the first time I tried going through the game, I got stuck: despite going to speak to Eugene after visiting the building in the cemetery, he completely ignored me in favor of his book. I had to reload the game and do things in the proper order (visit him first, then go to the cemetery and look at the building) to get things to work. Had to look around a bit just to check that wasn't where things were supposed to end.

All in all, it's neat, but if you don't leave yourself in an unwinnable position it's only 10 minutes long. I would say it's longer but it does feel a lot of the time I played this was trying to figure out if I had actually mucked things up/reached the end of the demo, and neither of those honestly count all that much.

1. Paladin Traducer 2. The War on XMas
3. Fridge Racer 4. Devs Like Waffles
5. Charbile's Lovely Home 6. Ghost's Towns
7. Allu in the Demon's Cave 8. Return
9. Teekee 10. Martin Van Buren, Monster Slayer
11. Lab Rat 12. Painted Space
13. Phlan 14. MrNintendo1's Michael Jackson Dancing
15. Linear Quest II 16. Time Twister
Attachments
Scurrying in while you're a mouse is obviously fine.
Scurrying in while you're a mouse is obviously fine.
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Yep, that's how it works.
Yep, that's how it works.
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Feenicks
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Post by Feenicks »

Bad Boy by TMC/Gizmog/SDHawk

How do you mess up game and watch?

I mean, seriously?

Here's one Game and Watch style. Here's another. Notice that in both of them their buttons are doing single duty, either moving Mr. Game and Watch to the left or right or moving him into a given position. In Bad Boy, the three buttons are doing double duty; they 1) move you into position and 2) flip you around if you're already at the place the button pressed references. This feels awfully awkward, and it isn't helped by the erratic nature of the falling vases. The devil popping up from level 2 on (as far as I can tell) doesn't help; all he does is potentially force the act of lining up with a falling vase to be much close to the vase breaking than is comfortable... or just make you lose a life if you wander onto him accidentally. I got to level 3, upon which I usually ended up losing my last life to a misjudged button press.
Props for making a game and watch-style game in the OHR, sure; shame this wouldn't be called one of the better ones. Would this be better if it was given the Game and Watch Gallery treatment? Maybe.

Also: could someone please tell me why santa's having to catch falling vases and avoid the devil? The least it could have been was presents or something.
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That covers everything.
That covers everything.
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